Isaac S. McFarland (1812 - 1869)

Born 10 Apr 1812 in Loudon Co., VA

Ancestors

Husband of Eliza (Sirpless) McFarland — married 30 May 1832 in nr Mansfield, Ohio

Descendants

Died 26 Apr 1869 at age 57 in The Dalles, Wasco Co., Oregon

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Biography

Isaac McFarland was born in Loudon Co., VA. He came from Maryland to Ohio with his parents in the fall of 1831 and until 1849 lived on a farm in Richland, near Mansfield, OH, during which year he moved with his family to Knox County, Illinois, where his brother, William, had settled 9 years earlier. Here he remained until the spring of 1852 in which year he brought his family and possessions in several Clydesdale drawn Conestoga wagons across the plains in 1852 to Oregon. It was not common for horses to be used pulling wagons across the Oregon Trail. He hired several neighbor lads, James Smith, Samuel Smith Bowden, James Lindsey, and George Whitmond, to drive the wagons and to work six months for him after their arrival in Oregon. Isaac McFarland’s daughter, Semantha, and James Smith died on the way, probably of cholera, and were buried 10 miles east of Castle Rock, CO. Arriving in Oregon City, OR, in October, the party remained until the spring of 1853 when they moved to Shoal Water Bay on the Washington coast. The next year they settled at The Dalles, OR, which was their home, except for three years, 1862-1865, when they lived in Goldendale, Washington. In the late summer of 1855 Isaac McFarland and his son James Cornelius, launched the third steamer that was ever built above the Cascades on the Columbia River. F. G. Imans was their other partner in building the fast steamer “The Wasco”; with Isaac as Captain and James as engineer, they carried freight and passengers between The Cascades and The Dalles. Occasionally the Indians would attack the steamer and create navigation hazards along the river, which was reflected in the freight cost of $80 a ton between Portland and The Dalles.

McFarland, Joseph, M.D., historian. 1912. The Book of the Generations of William McFarland and Nancy Kilgore-1740-1912. Edward Norton Cantwell, Publ., Dundee, Illinois.

Isaac died of a heart attack at age 57.

Sources

• The Book of the Generations of William McFarland and Nancy Kilgore 1740-1912

• https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005731541